---
title: "Bundling"
sidebar_position: 90
description: "How Convex bundles and optimizes your function code"
---

Bundling is the process of gathering, optimizing and transpiling the JS/TS
source code of [functions](/functions.mdx) and their dependencies. During
development and when deploying, the code is transformed to a format that Convex
[runtimes](/functions/runtimes.mdx) can directly and efficiently execute.

Convex currently bundles all dependencies automatically, but for the Node.js
runtime you can disable bundling certain packages via the
[external packages](#external-packages) config.

## Bundling for Convex

When you push code either via `npx convex dev` or `npx convex deploy`, the
Convex CLI uses [esbuild](https://esbuild.github.io/) to traverse your `convex/`
folder and bundle your functions and all of their used dependencies into a
source code bundle. This bundle is then sent to the server.

Thanks to bundling you can write your code using both modern ECMAScript Modules
(ESM) or the older CommonJS (CJS) syntax.

<Details summary="ESM vs. CJS">
    ESM
    - Is the standard for browser JavaScript
    - Uses static imports via the `import` and `export` **keywords** (not functions)
    at the global scope
    - Also supports dynamic imports via the asynchronous `import` function

    CJS
    - Was previously the standard module system for Node.js
    - Relies on dynamic imports via the `require` and asynchronous `import`
    functions for fetching external modules
    - Uses the `module.exports` object for exports

</Details>

## Bundling limitations

The nature of bundling comes with a few limitations.

### Code size limits

The total size of your bundled function code in your `convex/` folder is
**limited to 32MiB (~33.55MB)**. Other platform limits can be found
[here](/production/state/limits.mdx).

While this limit in itself is quite high for just source code, certain
dependencies can quickly make your bundle size cross over this limit,
particularly if they are not effectively
[tree-shakeable](https://webpack.js.org/guides/tree-shaking/) (such as
[aws-sdk](https://www.npmjs.com/package/aws-sdk) or
[snowflake-sdk](https://www.npmjs.com/package/snowflake-sdk))

You can follow these steps to debug bundle size:

<StepByStep>
  <Step title="Make sure you're using the most recent version of convex">
    ```sh
    npm install convex@latest
    ```
  </Step>
  <Step title="Generate the bundle">
   Note that this will not push code, and just generated a bundle for debugging purposes.

    ```sh
    npx convex dev --once --debug-bundle-path /tmp/myBundle
    ```

  </Step>
  <Step title="Visualize the bundle">
  Use
   [source-map-explorer](https://github.com/danvk/source-map-explorer/tree/master)
   to visualize your bundle.

    ```sh
    npx source-map-explorer /tmp/myBundle/**/*.js
    ```

  </Step>
</StepByStep>

Code bundled for the Convex runtime will be in the `isolate` directory while
code bundled for node actions will be in the `node` directory.

Large node dependencies can be eliminated from the bundle by marking them as
[external packages](/functions/bundling.mdx#external-packages).

### Dynamic dependencies

Some libraries rely on dynamic imports (via `import`/`require` calls) to avoid
always including their dependencies. These imports are not supported by the
[default Convex runtime](/functions/runtimes.mdx#default-convex-runtime) and
will throw an error at runtime.

Additionally, some libraries rely on local files, which cannot be bundled by
esbuild. If bundling is used, irrespective of the choice of runtime, these
imports will always fail in Convex.

<Details summary="Examples of libraries with dynamic dependencies">

Consider the following examples of packages relying on dynamic dependencies:

- [langchain](https://www.npmjs.com/package/langchain) relying on the presence
  of peer dependencies that it can dynamically import. These dependencies are
  not statically `import`ed so will not be bundled by `esbuild`.
- [sharp](https://www.npmjs.com/package/sharp) relying on the presence of
  `libvips` binaries for image-processing operations
- [pdf-parse](https://www.npmjs.com/package/pdf-parse) relies on being
  dynamically imported with `require()` in order to detect if it is being run in
  test mode. Bundling can eliminate these `require()` calls, making `pdf-parse`
  assume it is running in test mode.
- [tiktoken](https://www.npmjs.com/package/tiktoken) relying on local WASM files

</Details>

## External packages

As a workaround for the bundling limitations above, Convex provides an escape
hatch: **external packages**. This feature is currently exclusive to Convex's
[Node.js runtime](/functions/runtimes.mdx#nodejs-runtime).

External packages use
[`esbuild`'s facility for marking a dependency as external](https://esbuild.github.io/api/#external).
This tells `esbuild` to not bundle the external dependency at all and to leave
the import as a dynamic runtime import using `require()` or `import()`. Thus,
your Convex modules will rely on the underlying system having that dependency
made available at execution-time.

### Package installation on the server

Packages marked as external are installed from [npm](https://www.npmjs.com/) the
first time you push code that uses them. The version installed matches the
version installed in the `node_modules` folder on your local machine.

While this comes with a latency penalty the first time you push external
packages, your packages are cached and this install step only ever needs to
rerun if your external packages change. Once cached, pushes can actually be
faster due to smaller source code bundles being sent to the server during
pushes!

### Specifying external packages

Create a [`convex.json`](/production/project-configuration.mdx#convexjson) file
in the same directory as your `package.json` if it does not exist already. Set
the `node.externalPackages` field to `["*"]` to mark all dependencies used
within your Node actions as external:

```json
{
  "node": {
    "externalPackages": ["*"]
  }
}
```

Alternatively, you can explicitly specify which packages to mark as external:

```json
{
  "node": {
    "externalPackages": ["aws-sdk", "sharp"]
  }
}
```

The package identifiers should match the string used in `import`/`require` in
your [Node.js action](/functions/actions.mdx#choosing-the-runtime-use-node).

### Troubleshooting external packages

#### Incorrect package versions

The Convex CLI searches for external packages within your local `node_modules`
directory. Thus, changing version of a package in the `package.json` will not
affect the version used on the server until you've updated the package version
installed in your local `node_modules` folder (e.g. running `npm install`).

#### Import errors

Marking a dependency as external may result in errors like this:

> The requested module "some-module" is a CommonJs module, which may not support
> all module.exports as named exports. CommonJs modules can always be imported
> via the default export

This requires rewriting any imports for this module as follows:

```ts
// ❌ old
import { Foo } from "some-module";

// ✅ new
import SomeModule from "some-module";
const { Foo } = SomeModule;
```

### Limitations

The total size of your source code bundle and external packages cannot exceed
the following:

- 45MB zipped
- 240MB unzipped

Packages that are known not to work at this time:

- [Puppeteer](https://www.npmjs.com/package/puppeteer) - browser binary
  installation exceeds the size limit
- [@ffmpeg.wasm](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@ffmpeg/ffmpeg) - since 0.12.0,
  [no longer supports Node environments](https://ffmpegwasm.netlify.app/docs/faq#why-ffmpegwasm-doesnt-support-nodejs)

If there is a package that you would like working in your Convex functions,
[let us know](https://convex.dev/community).
